


And I'm Ready For Love

by Jocelyn



Category: Pacific Rim, Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Becket Family Feels, Chuck Lives, Dancing in the Rain, Drift Bond, FEELS DAMMIT!, Gen, Gratuitous Gene Kelly References, Hansen Family Feels, Introspection, Jaeger Pilots, Kid Mako Mori, Nostalgia, Pentecost Feels, Post-Operation Pitfall (Pacific Rim), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Shatterdome Shenanigans, Tendo Knows All, Weather
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-04-02 02:51:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4042996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jocelyn/pseuds/Jocelyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Weather is full of memory for Mako and Raleigh after the war.  They don't like the sun, they don't like the cold, they don't like wind, they don't like thunder and lightning.  But they both love rain.  They cuddle under an umbrella during a Hong Kong downpour, Tendo engages in shenanigans for their amusement, and Chuck takes over a rainy day game that Stacker and Mako used to play.  And Marshal Hansen scolds them all.  One-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And I'm Ready For Love

**Author's Note:**

> This is my fill for Raine_Wynd's "rain" challenge. The only real criteria to deal with was "Must include rain in some fashion." I asked for prompts and ran with two of them: Raine_Wynd suggested that Mako's umbrella was big enough for two or even three, and LadyLaiacona requested Stacker/Mako bonding fluff involving playing in the rain. (The title is a lyric from Singin' In The Rain. For those who don't recognize the pose Tendo strikes - Google the title. The first picture from the famous Gene Kelly musical that you see is the one.)

**And I’m Ready For Love**

Some things, Mako and Raleigh know they have in common before they ever attempted to drift: the Jaeger Program, the loss of family to the kaiju, Japanese, international travel, combat skills, and high simulator scores.

After Operation Pitfall, they distract themselves with a game: discovering all they could share that had nothing to do with the war. Or at least, very little to do with it. There’s almost nothing about either of their lives unstained by the kaiju.

They find out about rain almost by accident: the first time Hong Kong has another downpour after Operation Pitfall, since they have leisure now, they end up on the roof together under an umbrella.

It’s not that either of them especially likes getting wet, it’s just…

“I like the sound,” Mako tells him. “I always did, but after Tokyo I liked it more. And it takes smells away, like smoke.” Raleigh knows from drifting that she used to like sunny days, but now they unsettle her. The sun was bright and the sky was blue the day Onibaba came to Tokyo and turned everything to rubble and ash. She’s still apprehensive if the weather is “too good.” She stays inside when everyone else looks for excuses to be outdoors.

Sunny, fine days don’t unnerve Raleigh as they do Mako, but they make him sad. Yancy loved the sun, the feel of it on his face, the color of a clear sky and fluffy white clouds. He basked in the sun like a cat, every chance he got. Gipsy Danger’s crew used to insist that Yancy must have been switched at birth with a California surfer dude. Days like that make Raleigh miss him the most.  

Raleigh gets uneasy in the winter, especially during storms. He liked them once, liked the power of them. But when it’s cold and windy, full of sleet and snow and thunder, all he can think of is Knifehead. Even summer thunderstorms in the warm climates sound too much like that night in the Gulf of Alaska. He goes as far into the interior rooms of the Shatterdome as he can during storms, so he won’t have to hear the thunder or the wind.

The rumble of thunder reminds Mako of the sounds of destruction, tearing metal and crashing buildings and a monster’s roars. She doesn’t like it either.

But the steady, quiet rains of Hong Kong don’t stir up anxiety or sorrow or bad memories. The sound and the smell of rain is comforting to both Raleigh and Mako.

She tells him that Stacker Pentecost and Tamsin Sevier liked rain too; it reminded them of home, when Luna had been alive and they’d navigated the rainy, foggy streets of London and Edinburgh, sure of themselves and their future. Stacker and Tamsin never had the chance to take Mako to the UK amid the war effort. She wants to go, to see the birthplace and childhood cities of her adoptive family, all the sites they told her about. Their busy cities quieted in the rain.

The three did manage to steal some happy days in Hawaii, when Tamsin wasn’t in treatment and Stacker and Mako had the rare chance to join her for a holiday. They avoided the beaches – like so many people during the war – but the soft patter of rain on the leaves of the tropical rainforests and birdsong is a rare, peaceful memory.

Raleigh likes the way it tints the world. It blurs away distractions and fades out surroundings, the visual equivalent of white noise. During those five years and four months, rainy days were some of his better days. He had to concentrate on where he was walking, and sights and sounds faded. He didn’t have to think about other things, and at the end of his shift, he didn’t have to exercise himself to complete exhaustion to have a chance at sleep.

With Hong Kong’s summer rain comes fog, and it’s as if the Shatterdome is alone in a cloud. They can’t see the harbor with the salvage boats working on the wreckage of Crimson Typhoon and Cherno Alpha. They can’t see the tattered skyline where Otachi ripped her path of destruction towards the bone slum. All that’s hidden behind a soft gray curtain, and the noises of the city are muffled.

They’ve propped their umbrella behind themselves where they sit against one of the upper walls, and Raleigh actually dozes on Mako’s shoulder. She daydreams with her cheek against his hair, lulled into a state of calm that she’s never experienced in her life. Even before the kaiju, she was an energetic girl, resistant to adults who admonished her to be still. She knows from the drift that Raleigh was the same.

Somehow, after the war, peace has found them.

Tendo finds them up there after a few hours. Never one to betray that he is fretful over their welfare, he wakes them up by prancing across the upper deck, splashing in puddles to a rousing rendition of Singin’ in the Rain. Mako and Raleigh laugh until their umbrella isn’t protecting them at all, so Mako hands it to Tendo as a prop. He gets even more enthusiastic as a result.

Tendo is quite a good singer…except that he only knows about half of the lyrics, so he “la-la-la”’s the rest. He makes up for his nonexistent tapdancing skills by splashing in puddles, and Raleigh wishes for a camera when Tendo jumps up onto a utility pole into Gene Kelly’s iconic pose.

Chuck arrives on the roof while the performance is still going on and watches incredulously. Raleigh shoots him a grin, and notes that Chuck shifts to one side under his own umbrella to invite Mako into the shelter. It’s a very Pentecost-like move. If she notices that, she doesn’t say, but she does join him, and he doesn’t even blink when Raleigh joins them both. The umbrella’s big enough for three.

Chuck Hansen has been very quiet since returning from Operation Pitfall, knocked unconscious and ejected by his own co-pilot moments before the payload detonated. Raleigh and Mako know all too well the effect of being only half of a Jaeger crew to return alive. Herc seems to understand too. Chuck’s not sullen, just… preoccupied.

But today, for the first time either of them can recall, they see Chuck grin, thanks to the sodden rooftop antics of Tendo Choi.

As the act winds down and they applaud, Raleigh sees Chuck eye Mako, then abruptly tap the tip of his shoe into a puddle, splashing her feet. She hesitates for only a beat, then responds in kind.

Neither of them make a sound (except for a giggle from Mako), but it’s as if they’ve been playing this game for years, kicking puddles towards each other while trying to evade the return attacks.

Raleigh’s confused until he remembers a vision in the drift: a little girl in a raincoat at the side of a man under a woefully small umbrella. She was all knees and elbows, stumbling a bit against her guardian’s hip as she tried to keep dry, but no use, and she inadvertently put her foot into a deeper-than-expected puddle and sloshed his uniform leg. She squeaked in dismay; he looked down at her with his ever-stern countenance… and splashed her back.

Sensei had never uttered a word during that increasingly-soaked walk through whatever city they’d been in. Mako must have been thirteen at most. Sensei hadn’t cracked a smile, but she hadn’t been fooled. The two of them had been a real hazard on pavement during rainstorms for years after that. Even when she was an officer and he her superior, when it was raining, they would glance at the ground and take the measure of each other’s positions, as if to say, _Just you wait!_

Mako and Chuck keep it up for a long time, barely jostling the umbrella that Chuck’s holding, while Raleigh shakes with silent laughter. Tendo doesn’t even notice, and they wind down as he rejoins them after completing his little musical revue.

Herc finds them all still up there, just silently watching the rain, leaning on each other under their umbrellas. “Now what’s the bloody point of having these enormous things if you lot are going to get soaked anyway?”

Tendo looks from Herc to the three younger Rangers and looks them up and down. “Dunno what you’re talking about, sir!”

“Get inside and dry off before you all get sick; it’s getting dark,” Herc orders.

“Yes, Marshal,” says Mako obediently.

“Yes, _Ma,_ ” adds Chuck. Herc glowers, and Raleigh tries and fails to stifle a snicker, which only gets the Hansen, Sr. Death Glare aimed at him in turn. He doesn’t even have to look to know Mako is rolling her eyes at them, but now she’s ushering them towards the exit door.

It is getting dark and chilly now. The rain isn’t letting up. There are no stars over Hong Kong tonight, but the lights of the Shatterdome glitter and flash, turning droplets into an endless flow of diamonds.

The devil rose up from the water and turned their world into hell. Now at peace, they stand in the open where water falls from the sky with nothing to fear.  Death came from below the ocean. When the rain stops, the clouds part, and the stars come back out, maybe they’ll be ready to look again for life.

**~Fin~**


End file.
